Tag Archive for: jim jordan

House Republicans Demand Documents From Prosecutor Investigating Trump

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Three House Republican committee chairmen are demanding documents from the New York prosecutor who is investigating former President Donald Trump’s payments to an adult actress.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, and House Administration Committee chairman Bryan Steil are calling on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to provide all documents and communications involving his investigation into Trump, as well as sit for a transcribed interview. A New York grand jury is investigating Trump’s 2016 payments to Stormy Daniels, and the former president said Saturday that he expects to be arrested Tuesday, March 21.

“You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office. This indictment comes after years of your office searching for a basis—any basis—on which to bring charges, ultimately settling on a novel legal theory untested anywhere in the country and one that federal authorities declined to pursue,” the lawmakers wrote.

Elected Republican officials and presidential candidates have defended Trump against the likely prosecution, highlighting liberal billionaire George Soros’ donations to Bragg. The Manhattan DA has also declined to prosecute numerous felonies, the Republicans have noted, while investigating Trump for allegedly falsifying business records, a misdemeanor.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pledged action against Bragg on Sunday at the House Republican Conference retreat, telling reporters that he was speaking with Jordan about it. He later added that he does not believe people should protest an indictment.

“Your decision to pursue such a politically motivated prosecution—while adopting progressive criminal justice policies that allow career ‘criminals [to] run[ ] the streets’ of Manhattan—requires congressional scrutiny about how public safety funds appropriated by Congress are implemented by local law–enforcement agencies. In addition, your apparent decision to pursue criminal charges where federal authorities declined to do so requires oversight to inform potential legislative reforms about the delineation of prosecutorial authority between federal and local officials. Finally, because the circumstances of this matter stem, in part, from Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, Congress may consider legislative reforms to the authorities of special counsels and their relationships with other prosecuting entities,” the Republicans added.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, paid Daniels $130,000 days before the 2016 election as part of a non-disclosure agreement related to an affair. Daniels later violated the NDA and was ordered to pay Trump $300,000. Prosecutors reportedly believe that the payment violated New York law since Trump classified it as a “legal expense.”

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional correspondent.

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Rep. Jim Jordan Subpoenas Former Head Of Disinformation Board

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The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board Monday.

Nina Jankowicz, who chaired the board from its April 2022 inception to its May 2022 dissolution, promoted a variety of false claims popular among Democrats. She blamed DHS’s decision to shut down the board on right-wing disinformation, asserting that it was part of a broader campaign. The committee’s subpoena requests general information about the board’s formation and goals.

“We have repeatedly sought information from you concerning your official actions and duties as a DHS employee and former Executive Director of the Board, including how the Board intended to define disinformation, how it planned to collect information and from what sources, how it anticipated countering disinformation, and how it proposed to protect First Amendment rights,” committee chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio wrote in a letter to Jankowicz. “To date, however, you have declined to comply voluntarily with our request for a transcribed interview.”

Although DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the board would “not infringe on free speech… civil rights [or] civil liberties” because it would have an international focus, documents released by Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Charles Grassley of Iowa showed that the board would focus on issues by topic, not by national origin.

Biden administration officials expressed particular concern about “conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections,” “disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks,” and “falsehoods surrounding U.S. government immigration policy,” in one document released by the senators.

Republican elected officials also expressed concern with DHS’s decision to tap Jankowicz to lead the board. A former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Jankowicz repeatedly accused GOP officials and activists of spreading disinformation. She claimed that opponents of Critical Race Theory are  engaging in “disinformation for profit,” and that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Republican “campaign product.”

“There’s never been any indication that Hunter Biden was involved in anything untoward,” she said of Hunter Biden’s Burisma Energy board position. “It certainly has nothing to do with Joe Biden’s policies toward Ukraine.”

Jankowicz registered in November 2022 as a foreign agent lobbying for a British firm. The Centre for Information Resilience describes itself as a “non-profit social enterprise dedicated to countering disinformation, exposing human rights abuses, and combating online behaviour harmful to women and minorities.”

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional correspondent.

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House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Officially Subpoenas Department Of Education Over School Boards Issue

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan officially subpoenaed the Department of Education on Friday, the Daily Caller has learned exclusively.

According to the subpoena, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is “commanded” to produce documents before the Judiciary Committee on March 1, 2023, at 9 a.m. ET. The subpoena comes as Jordan sent four letters to various officials Friday, calling for information and interviews the committee has been requesting, in a final warning shot before he sent the subpoena their way.

The Daily Caller first obtained the letters, which were sent to Chip Slaven, former Interim Executive Director and CEO of the National School Boards Association; Nina Jankowicz, former leader of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “Disinformation Governance Board;” Viola Garcia with the National School Boards Association, and Jennifer Moore, the Executive Assistant Director for the Human Resources Branch at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In the letters, Jordan accuses each official of ignoring requests for transcribed interviews, as well as not providing the committee with the documents and information they previously requested. Jordan gives the officials one last chance to come before the committee before sending subpoenas to the officials.

Cardona allegedly solicited a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) likening parents to domestic terrorists, according to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE). The letter reportedly advocated for federal investigators to monitor and intervene in activities by concerned parents, PDE emails showed. After the letter was publicized, the NBSA sent out a memo to members saying, “We regret and apologize for the letter.”

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.

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‘Rotted At Its Core’: House Judiciary GOP Releases Massive 1,000-Page Report On Alleged FBI Misconduct

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Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee on Friday released a 1,050-page report on alleged FBI misconduct, based primarily on the testimony of whistleblowers within the agency.

The report, titled “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their Disclosures Indicate About The Politicization of the FBI And The Justice Department,” began by stating that the FBI “is broken” under the leadership of Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Wray’s superior, while also blaming the “politicized bureaucracy” of the agency. It accused Garland and Wray of overseeing an agency that “altered and mischaracterized evidence to federal courts, circumvented safeguards, and exploited weaknesses in policies.”

The report identifies several key areas for oversight as Republicans are poised to take the House majority after the midterm elections. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee have already promised investigations into the FBI and intelligence community over the handling of the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the surveilling of school board meetings, among other topics.

In the executive summary, the report quoted FBI whistleblowers who spoke to Republican staff on the committee, led by Ranking Member Jim Jordan of Ohio, claiming that the FBI was “rotted at its core” and maintained a “systemic culture of unaccountability” as well as being full of “rampant corruption, manipulation, and abuse.” It also alleged that the FBI may be inflating statistics on the incidence of violent extremism across the country, as well as diverting resources away from criminal investigations towards more politically-relevant areas.

Some of the allegations leveled in the report include the contention that the FBI “manufactured” a controversy about domestic violent extremism, by “orchestrating” the failed plot to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, which was foiled in 2020. It also alleges that the Bureau attempted to minimize allegations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, who is currently being investigated for tax-related felonies by Delaware’s U.S. Attorney, David C. Weiss, a holdover from the Trump administration.

Other allegations include the “purging” of conservative employees who dissent from the FBI’s efforts to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion,” which the report terms as a “woke agenda.” Such programs in federal agencies have been heavily criticized by Republicans, who claim that the bias violates the freedom of conscience of conservative federal employees who may disagree with them.

One FBI employee alleged to the committee they were told by their FBI superiors “that child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies.” Another claimed that an FBI program, codenamed “Operation Bronze Griffin,” was an illicit partnership between the FBI and Facebook, where the Bureau allegedly accepts private user information from Facebook, but without the user’s consent or legal process.

The report’s release comes at a time when the FBI is under heavy scrutiny from Republicans in Congress for a variety of reasons. The FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, in August, prompted several allegations of improper procedure – including that the FBI took materials under attorney-client privilege – and the appointment of a Special Master to review the documents seized.

The bureau was also scrutinized after an alleged order issued by Garland to the FBI to surveil, under counterterrorism authority, parents being involved in school board meetings in Northern Virginia. Many parents have attended school board meetings to criticize the prevalence of contested concepts regarding race and gender in curricula, which has been supported by Republicans.

In response to a request for comment, the FBI wrote that “we follow the facts without regard for politics.  While outside opinions and criticism often come with the job, we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, do things by the book, and speak through our work.”

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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